Erik is a baseball fan who has been attending baseball games and snagging baseballs regularly since 2008.

Results tagged ‘ Erik Kratz ’

As you may have noticed, for over a week or so now, I have been blogging every day. The purpose was to increase my readership during the offseason as we head towards opening day, get myself back into the habit of blogging, and count down the days one blog at a time.

In order to reward you for reading, I’ve decided to give away a MLB prize each week. Every Monday, I will post a contest for new item. Then, a winner will be chosen on Sunday, a week later.

So let’s begin by showing you what is being given away in the #countingbaseballs giveaway for this week. It’s…

A Matt Wieters Baltimore Orioles name and number official Majestic shirt. Retail value $22. Brand new. With tags.
The front:
Up close front:
The back:
Brand new from the store:
Since I’m extra nice, the winner may choose a size MEDIUM or LARGE. If you’re on the bigger side, I’m sorry – I’ll try and have larger shirts in the future. But you could always re-gift if you win. Anyhow, this shirt is sure to please and Orioles fan, or ballhawk that will see the Orioles at a game in 2012. Oh, and I’ll even pay the postage.

How to Enter:
1) Leave a comment.
You can enter up to seven times per week simply by leaving a comment. Non-pertinent, spam, or inappropriate comments will not be accepted. If you comment multiple times on the same blog entry, it still counts as one entry. For example, if you commented on three different blog posts from this week, you’d have three entries.

2) Retweet (RT) my posts on Twitter
You can find me on twitter under 333greystreet. Simply retweet my daily posts with a #countingbaseballs in your RT each day and I’ll count that as an entry. My blog is connected to my twitter so that I automatically tweet once I post a new entry. Each day, I’ll search #countingbaseballs to see who’s retweeted me and enter those users into a hat along with the commenters.

At the end of the week on Sunday, I’ll have Olivia, Amy or I will choose a name from a hat and announce the winner. Maybe we’ll do it on youtube. The maximum number of entries per week is 14 if you leave comments and retweet.

Anyhow, I thought this would be a cool idea to give away some of my extra MLB Stuff.

I’ll end this post with some thoughts about Matt Wieters.
Where does he rank for you among the best catchers in the American League? Who is better than him? Mike Napoli? Carlos Santana? Joe Mauer? Alex Avila? I’ll rank him at 2nd. I like Carlos Santana best, but that’s probably because he plays for my second favorite team and I snagged a game HR ball from him in 2009.

Long suffering Pittsburgh Pirates fans are all too familiar with Matt Wieters. In 2007, the Pirates, led by David Littlefield, passed on Matt Wieters in order to select Daniel Moskos. Outrage ensued at the Pirates’ cheapness and on June 30th 2007, Bob Walk bobblehead night, fans orchestrated a walk out. Fans wore green to the game to signify owner Bob Nutting’s greed and then walked out at a pre-determined time. I was at the game, but I can’t exactly remember when it happened. The game was virtually a sell out, and although a few thousand people left, it wasn’t too noticeable in the grand scheme of things.

Wieters broke into the league in 2009 and has hit 42 home runs and has been an All Star. Daniel Moskos finally was promoted to the Major Leagues in 2011 and although he posted a 2.96 ERA in 24 innings. His H/9 (10.9) and WHIP (1.56) were high. In the Minors, he has a career 4.41 ERA, including a 5.46 ERA in 39 games at the AAA level. So, he really hasn’t proven in the minors that he’ll have a successful big league career yet.

And that catching position, well, the Pirates really REALLY needed Matt Wieters because rather than penciling his name in at catcher every day, over the last three years we’ve had to deal with Wyatt Toregas, Matt Pagnozzi, Eric Fryer, Dusty Brown, Jason Jaramillo, Chris Snyder, Ryan Doumit, Michael McKenry, Erik Kratz and Robinzon Diaz (who we traded Jose Bautista to get!)

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